Antonio del Corro

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Antonio del Corro (Corrano, de Corran, Corranus) (Seville, 1527-London, 1591) was a Spanish monk who became a Protestant convert. A noted Calvinist preacher and theologian, he taught at the University of Oxford and wrote the first Spanish grammar in English.

Contents

[edit] Against the Inquisition

He was a Hieronymite of the Abbey of San Isidro, Seville. Influenced by Cypriano de Valera, he came into contact with the Protestant ideas of Luther, Melanchthon and Bullinger[1].

He left Spain with others in 1557, fearing the Spanish Inquisition[2][3]. Scholars now consider that he may be behind the pseudonym Reginaldus Gonsalvius Montanus (Renaldo Gonzalez Montano), who published in 1567 the account Sanctae Inquisitionis Hispanicae Artes aliquot detectae ac palam traductae, a major source for subsequent accounts of the Inquisition[4][5][6][7][8].

[edit] European travels

He travelled to Lausanne and Geneva, but came to quarrel with Jean Calvin.[9]. On Calvin's recommendation, however, he became tutor to Henry of Navarre[10].

In France he used the name Bellerive[11], and served as a minister in Béarn[12]. He was supported by both Jeanne d'Albret and Renée of France[9]; the latter made him her chaplain at Montargis[11].

He became pastor of the Spanish church in Antwerp [13], but caused offence there too.[9].

[edit] In England

He came to England in the period 1567-70, and settled there. Having the influence of William Cecil, he had positions as pastor of the Spanish church in London, 1568-70, and lecturer at the Temple Church, 1571-4[14]. Later Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester was an important patron. In England del Corro moved away from Calvinism to more tolerant and even free-thinking positions, while being a controversialist. It has been suggested that his qualified acceptance stemmed from political expediency.[15]

At the Temple Church he showed the influence of the Lutheran theologian Hemmingius in his preaching. He retreated from the Calvinist view of predestination. This shift brought him under criticism from Richard Alvey, Master of the Temple[16].

Controversy over his views followed him to Oxford, where he did tutoring and catechism work (at Hart Hall[17], also at Oriel College and [[St. John's College, Oxford|St. John's College[10]), and became reader in theology in 1578[9]. It brought him the opposition of the Puritan John Rainolds, who blocked his degree as Doctor of Divinity in 1576[16]. He persisted in views favouring free will, for example in glossing the Epistle to the Romans, 5:22[18].

In Oxford, his pupils included John Donne and Thomas Belson, a Catholic martyr[10][19].

The Spanish Grammar (1590) was an English translation by John Thorius of a grammar written by del Corro to teach Spanish to French speakers, and published in Oxford in 1586[20].

[edit] References

  • William McFadden (1953), The Life and Works of Antonio del Corro (1527-1591)
  • Edward Peters (1989), Inquisition

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Christopher Mattinson, Protestant Reformers in Elizabethan Oxford (1983), p. 111.
  2. ^ Henry Kamen, Inquisition and Society in Spain (1985), p. 73.
  3. ^ Chapter 2: Aristocrats and Traders
  4. ^ http://www.geocities.com/militantis/inquisition2.htm
  5. ^ B. A. Vermaseren, 'Who was Reginaldus Gonsalvius Montanus?' Bibliotheque d'Hiumanisme et Renaissance 47 [1985], pp. 47-77.
  6. ^ Beyond the Myth of The Inquisition: Ours Is "The Golden Age
  7. ^ Peter Brooks, Troubling Confessions: Speaking Guilt in Law and Literature (2000), p. 156, suggests the work was joint with Casiodoro de Reina.
  8. ^ The survey Kimberly Lynn Hossain (2007) Unraveling the Spanish Inquisition: Inquisitorial Studies in the Twenty-First Century History Compass 5 (4) , 1280–1293.
  9. ^ a b c d Michael Wyatt, The Italian Encounter with Tudor England: A Cultural Politics of Translation (2005), p. 150.
  10. ^ a b c Clare Asquith, Oxford University and Love's Labours Lost, p. 86, in Dennis Taylor, David N. Beauregard (editors), Shakespeare and the Culture of Christianity in Early Modern England.
  11. ^ a b The Reina-Valera Bible: From Dream to Reality | LiteraturaBautista
  12. ^ Andrew Pettegree (editor), The Early Reformation in Europe (1992), p. 234.
  13. ^ CHAPTER 8
  14. ^ Concise Dictionary of National Biography, under Corro.
  15. ^ Simon Adams, Leicester and the Court: Essays on Elizabethan Politics (2002), p. 228.
  16. ^ a b Philip Bruce Secor, Richard Hooker: Prophet of Anglicanism (1999), p. 95.
  17. ^ Norman Leslie Jones, The English Reformation: Religion and Cultural Adaptation (2002), p. 29.
  18. ^ William Poole, Milton and the Idea of the Fall, p. 35.
  19. ^ Thomas Belson
  20. ^ Sylvain Auroux, History of the language sciences (2000), p. 720.

[edit] External links

Languages